


Oxford, 1924

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Mistletoe - Holiday Gifts from wwhiskeyandbloodd [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Banter, Christmas Fluff, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drinking, Kissing, M/M, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 23:16:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5474162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Christ,” Will sighs, with a murmured apology to Matthew, who lifts his hand in no offense. “They’re doing it.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Doing what?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Something awful, no doubt. Listen to them scheming.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>This is enough for Anthony’s bright eyes to flash towards Will, smile spreading wide not in menace but in delight.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oxford, 1924

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinneykid3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinneykid3/gifts).



> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

“How did you celebrate in Paris?” Matt asks, leaning his head back against the familiar welcoming thighs behind him. 

“Paris...” Anthony purrs the word and Matty rests a hand against his leg to quiet him.

“I’m asking Hannibal.”

“Don’t ask a bloody doctor,” Anthony groans. From beside him, Will snorts, Hannibal similarly at his feet as Matt is at Anthony’s. “He has no sense of poetic expression. It will all be facts with him.”

“Maybe I want facts for a change,” Matt laughs, narrowing his eyes at Will. “Maybe I want to know what actually happened.”

“I would never lie,” the poet mutters, indignant, and his boy soothes him.

“Merely drown us all in hyperbole.”

"There’ll be ample time for me to choke on _your_ hyperbole later, dearest," snorts Anthony, before downing his champagne and motioning grandly to Hannibal. "Go on, then."

With a smile in his eyes, he inclines his head in thanks. The big band on the radio plays sprightly and bright, festive tunes both traditional and more uptempo. They are all dressed finely for the occasion, Hannibal and Anthony in vibrant green velvet dinner jackets - an unplanned but delightful coincidence - while Matthew and Will, eminently more sensible, wear heavy, warm jumpers instead. They walked through several of Oxford’s colleges that day to see the trees in their halls, at Hannibal’s insistence that they leave the house. Only once did Will need to menace Anthony with his cane for deriding the university, before Matthew defeated the poet with a well-placed snowball.

"We're not terribly far removed from how we celebrated in Paris," Hannibal says. "It was only the four of us - myself and Mr. Dimmond, _Messieurs_ Budge and Froideveaux - and no others, no matter how much Tobias or Anthony fussed about it. We would begin with _réveillon_ , beginning at supper of Christmas Eve and lasting well into Christmas Day. Gorging ourselves on chestnut-stuffed turkey, oysters, foie gras. All thirteen traditional desserts."

"Thirteen?" Matt laughs.

"French custom, I'm afraid. That and a house full of half-starved wastrels tugging at my apron strings," says Hannibal. "I could hardly deny them."

"He does himself discredit," Anthony notes, "by not taking absolute credit for so impressively sating us in our condition. You see, we three began far earlier in the day than dear Hannibal in filling ourselves with whatever wine, champagne or brandy we could get our hands on. Once the tree was tossed with whatever baubles or feathers or bits of string we thought appropriately suited to our Dadaist tendencies, we turned on him next.”

Will grins down at Hannibal, threading fingers through his hair. "I was so pleased by the Christmas pudding and pork roast, and now you tell me we might have had a feast."

"Shall I return to the kitchen?"

"Don't you dare," laughs Will.

Anthony takes a long, satisfying drag of his cigarette, before pressing it gently to Matthew's lips. The scent of rich tobacco blends brightly with the earthy scent of the fireplace at roar, the sylvan promises of pine in the air from Christmas tree and kissing-bough. Hannibal certainly would have done all this even had it been only Will with him; the addition of Anthony and Matthew surely only encouraged his particularly ostentatious presentation. 

"You're making it sound far more wholesome than it was," Anthony accuses Hannibal, eyes narrowed in delight.

"It didn’t seem as festive to say, 'Mr. Dimmond enjoyed spending his Christmas Eve bellowing carols to Montmarte as he balanced, often bare, on the edge of our roof, with a cigarette in one hand and wine in the other'," Hannibal responds, brows raising. "But I suppose I just have."

"More champagne," Will mutters, direly amused, as Matthew laughs. Will sets his hands to the couch and begins to work himself slowly upward, but Anthony takes Will's fingers in his hand and brings them to his lips, brushing a dainty kiss across them.

"I insist our favored hosts rest fat and lazy just where they are," he declares, ducking to kiss Matthew's hair before slipping to stand.

"You just want a nip of it first," Will says, and Anthony merely smiles, stroking Will’s hair as he passes by.

“I did far more than balance precariously on the edge of our roof,” Anthony says.

“Bare,” Will reminds him.

“Often bare,” Matt corrects with a snort.

“One time,” Anthony recalls, bending to reach for a bottle of champagne, “Tobias brought his cello up, do you remember?”

For the first time in a long time, Hannibal's resolve breaks and he giggles, a hand to his face as he shakes his head. Anthony watches him fondly as he works the foil and wire free off the top of the bottle.

“He claimed we could make rent with our caterwauling, and demanded we try.”

“He demanded with good reason,” Hannibal reminds him. “You had spent it all.” 

“If I recall correctly,” Anthony replies blithely, popping the bottle and grinning at the foam he manages to catch with his fingers before it spills. “And I do. You had convinced us most ardently that no Christmas should be without decorations or a proper meal, and you spent it all at the market.”

Hannibal raises a brow, blithely asking, "And then?"

Anthony lifts his eyes to the ceiling as if searching for the memory, and then returns with his bottle and a wide smile. "It wouldn't be Christmas without a tipple, Hannibal."

"A 'tipple' is a lovely way to describe you barreling into the house to find Franklyn and drag him back to help you carry all the bottles."

Anthony stops behind Will, seated on the sofa, and curves a hand beneath his chin. Will startles a little but Anthony clucks to quiet him, tilting his head back with the champagne upheld in the other hand.

"Are we already at this point of the evening?" Will asks, a smile crinkling his eyes even as he sighs.

"Praise the little baby Jesus, yes," Anthony agrees, carefully tipping the bottle to Will's lips. It's a practiced pour and a practiced swallow, even as the bubbles foam swiftly over Will's tongue. He wrinkles his nose as they rise and coughs a little when Anthony releases him. "Do you remember how quickly Franklyn hurried to grab the cello when it slipped?"

"How we all survived that much ice with our necks intact is a miracle," Hannibal agrees. Without needing to be guided, he looks up at Anthony and parts his lips. Their gaze holds a moment, always delighted simply to look upon the other, and Anthony gives him a gentle pour as well. He daubs his lips primly after, watching as Anthony sets his sights on Matthew.

"Something about the promise of imminent death made us all bold," Will agrees. "We used bits of scrap metal shavings to suffice as tinsel on a shrub somehow undestroyed. They gave us extra chocolate rations, though, and we managed to melt them down and drink them."

Anthony stops, one foot on either side of Matthew's lap, and regards him.

Will shrugs a little.

"Our miracle was that the other side stopped trying to murder us for a night, and we returned the favor," he adds, with a rueful grin. “The silence was eerie, but the carols and ringing in our ears made up for it. We pretended we were hearing church bells. Very broken, very untuned church bells.”

Matt watches him, enthralled, and turns to accept his sip of champagne when Anthony pours it, kissing him after to share the tingling bubbles on his tongue.

“I didn’t think you would celebrate Christmas during the war,” Matt asks, and Will smiles.

“I suppose we all wanted a bit of normalcy. Everyone had family to think of. Friends, lovers. So, huddled together we made it as special as we could, around the snow and ice and freezing mud.”

“Not quite the exciting escapades on the roof,” Hannibal murmurs, leaning his head back to look at Will upside down as Anthony steps arounds Matt to sit behind him again.

“Jimmy insisted on dressing as Father Christmas,” Will recalls with a laugh. “We scrounged around for anything to make his costume with. Tried to use snow for his beard. Then we looked for anything he could give as gifts. Brian intercepted the mail boy for that, gave him a few bottle caps for his collection so Jimmy could deliver joy to the entire squadron.”

It's rare that Will talks about the war. Never do they push him to do so, although all are curious for their own reasons and from their own experiences. Matthew knew older boys who went. Anthony translated in service to the service but never saw the front. And Hannibal...

Hannibal turns to sit on his hip, arm folded on Will's leg and cheek against it, to watch him as he speaks.

"We all sat around reading letters from home, some aloud and some not. It's remarkable to think now how much like home it felt. There with our brothers, despite letters from different mothers," Will says, curling his fingers to trace his knuckles along Hannibal's cheek. "Still much nicer to be here."

"I should hope so," Anthony says with a smile.

"I'm glad that you are," Hannibal tells him, eyes closing as Will kisses him from above. For speaking little, he says much, and conveys it in the warm fingers that curl into Will's hair, the spread of their lips that close politely again.

Matthew averts his eyes with ingrained propriety but only after watching them a moment. It's still unusual, comforting and thrilling both, to see two men treat each other with such affection. Kiss and touch and the brush of noses together, an intimacy disallowed to exist in the world outside their homes. His throat clicks as Anthony tucks a finger beneath his chin, and turns his gaze upward, settling with thighs spread across his lap.

"And you, Mr. Brown. Tell us of your Christmas adventures. America, Catholicism, a household full of sisters," he smiles, finally taking his own pull of champagne.

Matt hums and narrows his eyes. His family was always noisy, always so many of them, always active. He folds his arms across Anthony’s collarbone and rests on him.

“What’s to tell?”

“Everything,” Will suggests.

“Anything,” Hannibal encourages. Matt laughs and licks his lips.

“There was always a lot of cooking in my home. For days it smelled of bread and honey. On December sixth we still set our shoes out for St. Nicholas.”

“You what?” Anthony laughs, and Matt laughs too, brows raised.

“Tradition,” he says.

“On the sixth?" Anthony asks, before his eyes widen. "Oh, God, you mean the _actual_ Saint Nicholas. What did he leave you?"

"A sweet, or a little toy," Matt answers, letting his arms unfold and his hands follow the soft velvet jacket tailored snug to Anthony's body. He splays his fingers down his thighs to rest, as Anthony tips the champagne for him again.

"I presume you know he's the patron saint of sailors, so particularly well-suited for you," Anthony murmurs. His gaze follows the golden effervescent spill from the corner of Matt's lips.

"And a load of other things. Brewers, coopers, repentant thieves, archers," says Matt. At the last, Anthony finally leans close to kiss the champagne from his jaw.

"Call me Saint Sebastian, then."

Matthew laughs, Anthony seated heavy in his lap, as Hannibal notes, "You're making even less sense than usual, Anthony, an admirable feat if not bewilderingly unlikely."

"Art is often bewildering to Philistines," sighs Anthony, before squinting at Matt. "What sort of sweets?"

"A hard candy, a chocolate. I don't know," he says. "I usually gave them to one of my sisters. Or they took it before I could even see what it was and told me I didn't deserve anything from Saint Nicholas."

"How terribly charming,” Anthony decides. “We were a collection of heathens, you see, wallowing in our earthliness but for those moments when we ascended grasping upward -”

“Howling from the roof while abusing a cello,” Hannibal murmurs.

“Don’t fault Tobias for that,” Will interjects. “He plays beautifully.”

“I was coming to a conclusion -”

“Already?”

Anthony narrows a look at Matthew, who grins broad and bright in response. “No, you’ll be well-aware when that happens. I assure you,” he says, hand resting meaningfully on Matthew’s chest, “you’ll not be able to miss it.”

“What were your traditions?” Will finally allows, to a gracious nod from the poet as he rights himself and stands unsteadily. Swilling the champagne, he passes it off to Will and marches through the entryway to the front door, upon whose frame rests the kissing-bough.

Ornate sprays of spruce and scarlet flowers, bundled with fragrant juniper and cedar, exquisitely made - Anthony would know Hannibal’s touch anywhere. Hannibal makes a faint noise of warning as Anthony follows the velveteen ribbon that hangs from the bough’s center to the sprig of mistletoe dangling beneath. Clever fingers make quick work of its bow, and he brings the greenery back, upheld triumphant.

“Do you wish to tell them, Hannibal? Our beloveds, soon to be admitted into the seasonally-appropriate cult of our pagan winter worship?”

“It was once a European custom for showing good will,” Hannibal corrects him, but he can't help but smile as Anthony wickedly grins his delight. Their home is Paris was damn near strewn with the remains of the bough come the day after Christmas.

“And became a lovely custom for sharing intimacy with anyone who walked through the door.”

“Mistletoe?” Matt laughs, as Will takes another swig of champagne.

“Not just mistletoe, my fine colonial friend. Much, much more than that. Couched in tradition, the bough represented truth, freedom, beauty, and above all things: love.”

“It represented the Holy Trinity, with an upturned tip of an evergreen,” Hannibal murmurs, and Anthony gives him a look.

“We made our own Holy Trinities,” he grins. But when he turns to Will again his expression smooths. “In my house, these used to hang on every door leading outside. My mother was adamant we made them by hand. Sometimes we put apples within, other times berries and ribbon. One of the few times of the year that our entire household, staff included, were encouraged to participate.”

“Ours had candles,” Hannibal adds, smiling. “Dainty, tiny things that would twinkle within and fill the house with the warm smell of beeswax and pine.”

“I’m glad you didn’t dare try that in Paris,” Matthew says, and Hannibal hums, amused.

“I daresay we’d not be here today if we had attempted it. We’re fortunate that for all the cigarettes strewn about, we didn’t catch fire to that old place.”

“My father took me to church,” Will says. “One of the only days of the year we went. I asked my father why we didn’t go more often, and he told me, ‘Someone’s got to keep bread on the table and it’s not going be that one’, with a thumb towards the priest.”

Matthew laughs, delighted. “He wouldn’t have liked our marathon masses, then. Three of them, one at midnight. That one was always exciting, though - we got to stay up so late, even if it was spent in church.”

Fanning a hand through Matthew’s hair, Anthony dangles the mistletoe - freed from its bough - in his other hand. His gaze meets Hannibal’s and he asks, in French, “ _Should we show them?_ ”

“ _You’re a menace_ ,” Hannibal answers. “ _Try as you might, this isn’t quite Paris, is it? We’re not motivated to excess by the impending death drumming mortar shells outside the city._ ”

“Christ,” Will sighs, with a murmured apology to Matthew, who lifts his hand in no offense. “They’re doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“Something awful, no doubt. Listen to them scheming.”

This is enough for Anthony’s bright eyes to flash towards Will, smile spreading wide not in menace but in delight. “We had a tradition...”

Hannibal swears softly in French.

“- wherein we kept each other safe for the coming year, by sealing our kinship together.”

“I’m not shagging you,” Will says, grinning. “Seal yourself.”

“I’m happily taken, thank you,” Anthony responds, to a ruddy blush from Matthew at his feet. “We believed -”

“He means that he made it up,” says Hannibal.

“- that if we all kissed one another beneath the bough, we’d be kept safe for another year, until we could do it again. I’ll have you note my evidence as to the efficacy of this particular superstition in that all four of us - six of us, counting all involved - survived the Great War intact.”

“Sounds like the things I’d make up in school to get boys to kiss me,” Matthew observes, and Anthony bends to touch a finger to his nose.

“Mankind’s motivations are manifold, dearest Mr. Brown.”

“Can't argue with logic,” Matthew agrees, arching his back to kiss Anthony's fingertip and his lips when those fingers curl beneath Matt’s chin to hold him close. It is an intimate and lovely thing, warm, shared and filled with every kind of wish for goodwill they can muster.

Pulling away, Anthony sighs, cheeks warm from the champagne and the kiss both. With another chaste press of lips to Matthew's, he lets him go and turns to rest his elbow against the back of the couch dangling the mistletoe for Will to see and narrow his eyes at.

“For safety's sake,” Anthony insists, and Will laughs, rolling his eyes, blush dark. Finally he leans in and finds, to his surprise, that his magical protection kiss is pressed intimately to his cheek, and not his lips. Anthony, despite his enthusiasm and loud proclamations, has never once pushed anyone in his company to do something that made them feel uncomfortable. Pushing limits, always, but never in a direction of next-morning regret.

Will returns the kiss to the poet’s scruffy cheek and laughs a little, blushing as he leans back into his seat. Anthony gamely passes him the mistletoe, and Will takes it with good-natured wariness.

“Hell,” he sighs, almost a laugh. “You’re going to make us all do it?”

“One mustn’t buck tradition,” murmurs Hannibal, leaning back to regard Will upside down.

“You’re as bad as he is.”

“He wishes he were,” Anthony murmurs.

Hannibal hums but doesn’t disagree with either assessment, closing his eyes as Will kisses him upside down. Noses bump chins, they laugh against the other’s mouth. Their lips close together again and again, little kisses, fond kisses, and Anthony imagines that they’d spend their night this way if not for company.

He imagines they do just that, often, and the thought fills him with a flutter of warmth strong enough that he shivers. How unlikely they are. How unlikely the love shared by all this room, and that they’re all here to enjoy it.

“I think you’re safe now,” Anthony finally says, as Will grins, carressing Hannibal’s cheek and through his hair as he leans back, mistletoe still in hand. He regards Matthew, and Matthew him, and then Matthew looks to Anthony who simply raises a brow.

“I won’t have you drowning in the Cam because of a plant, darling.”

Matt snorts, and shifts to sit on his knees, hands on the plush sofa so that Will won't need to lean around everyone to reach him. They share a chaste kiss, and another to each cheek before Will passes the little plant on, and Matt settles to look at Hannibal. The doctor simply rests his head against Will’s knee and crooks his finger at the young man.

Matt blushes and goes, always intimidated by the truly handsome and talented and awe-inspiring man everyone is in love with. Hell, he can hardly blame them. He waits, nervous, for what Hannibal will decide to bestow on him and finally throws caution to the wind and kisses him first. Hardly enough to pull displeasure from Will, but enough to satisfy his own curiosity.

As if aware of their mutual intrigue, Will strokes again through Hannibal’s hair as he leans a little closer. There is no prurience in the slow twine of their lips, and only passing passion. But there is an exploration, guiding their lips languidly apart and drawing them together again. Matthew’s heart skids faster from the strength he can feel beneath Hannibal’s surface, a stalwart stability and drive. Hannibal draws a breath as the inexperience and ardent devotion of youth dizzies him. Each tastes in the other’s kiss the man whose love they have shared, and they part with curious, faint smiles of understanding.

“We should’ve done that,” Anthony murmurs to Will, grinning when he snorts.

There is, of course, a pair yet unprotected by Anthony’s nonsense superstitions. Matthew hands the mistletoe to Anthony with a small smile, and Anthony takes it but doesn’t move further. Bottom lip held briefly between his teeth, he releases it with a small sigh, regarding Hannibal.

Though it takes effort to stir embers to flame, and kindling to fuel it, Anthony considers the wisdom of stoking something that has settled to peaceful warmth. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust himself or Hannibal. More of concern is his inherent belief in love itself, and that surely what once burned so brightly as to nearly immolate them into mingled ashes could not have become so faint by compare.

“He’s composing,” Matthew whispers to Will, who sets his cheek against his fingers, elbow on the arm of the couch, and arches a brow as he watches their poet.

“We’ll be here ‘til next Advent at this rate,” Will says.

Surprisingly, Anthony does not rise to the bait, considering, still, the ribbon at his fingers, the man before him. Hannibal, similarly, doesn’t pitch in to tease. He waits. Long enough knowing each other to pick up the rhythms and pushes, long enough to understand that when one falls to somber composition that they need that time to process.

Perhaps it is a strange sort of goodbye, without ever farewelling the other. A silly protection for a silly superstition, and nothing more. Hannibal moves first, past Matty who sits back, and leans in to rest his head beneath Anthony's chin, nose against his pulse, breathing slowly until Anthony does too.

It's okay to let go of something that will never be the same, and welcome in its place something newer, different, just as strong. Traditions evolve in spite of their name, when circumstances change. When Anthony leans back, Hannibal leans up, and their kiss meets almost chaste, lips pressed to lips, both barely parted, and eyes closed.

Anthony presses palm and mistletoe both to Hannibal’s cheek. Hannibal’s fingers twine around a curl of Anthony’s hair. Neither deepen the kiss, nor seek for more. They needn’t attempt to defy what both can feel innately in the sustained and simple comfort between them.

And when Anthony realizes that it’s the taste of Matthew to which his heart responds with a surge, he laughs, turning aside when Hannibal nuzzles his cheek.

“Dull,” Anthony sighs, scarcely hiding his grin. “Terribly dull.”

“I think we've outgrown our prime troublemaking days,” Hannibal replies, laughing as Anthony does. It feels good, in truth, to settle down from that. A fun life but an exhausting one. They have each other here, unconditionally, and they have those they love to care for and coddle. 

They have a life. Kept safe by a silly superstition and their childish wonder in keeping it appeased, year after year.


End file.
